This Better be a Dream
by Yakosh
Summary: A girl who is 'just another gamer' wakes up having fallen through the roof of a mansion with a bunch of info in her head after going to bed in SAO. She soon realizes that this world is the world of a certain anime. This story contains little more than mentions of SAO characters and is basically a crossover of one of my SAO fanfics and Fate/Stay Night. T for some swearing. [Hiatus]
1. Chapter 1

**Just a 'random story I wanted to write...' I may have binge watched Fate/Stay Night recently. Forgive any mistakes because I re-watched Unlimited Blade Works and I intend to base it off the normal version, which I haven't watched in a while. Well at least to start with... This story is—in a way—a crossover between my current SAO fanfic (Duo of Darkness) (though with some possible changes, in the future a bit, etc. In other words, I mean approximately that, not exactly) and F/SN, not the original SAO.**

* * *

 **(Yuki)**

Ouch. Where am I?

I look around and see that I had fallen through the roof of a mansion... wait, that doesn't make sense. There are no destructible mansions in-

Suddenly, information poured into my mind. Holy Grail War? Servants? Heroic Spirits? Right, so I—despite being most certainly not dead and only arguably a hero—was summoned as a servant of the Archer class for this Holy Grail War... I'd say I'm more of a Saber, or even Assassin than Archer, but alright.

Well too start with, I should probably figure out where and who my Master is. I am—thankfully—in my video game body, because otherwise I'd be dead in a fight faster than... I dunno faster than what, but I wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight against any sort of Servant.

A few moments later a girl who looked to be 18 or so—maybe 19—forces open the door into the room I had fallen into, which was presumably locked. She wore a red shirt and short black skirt with thigh-high black socks. She also wore dark brown leather shoes and her hair was split into two bunches, similar to Silica's hairstyle. The ribbons with which it was tied were black and she had vibrant blue eyes.

She didn't look particularly happy, though there are any number of things that she could be unhappy about, for example, a person having fallen through her roof. Or maybe she's unhappy with the servant she got, which given that I'm younger than her, wouldn't be all that surprising. She had command seals on her hand so she was a master. And given that this was a deathmatch, she would probably have left by now if she wasn't the person who summoned me out of fear for her life.

After a bit her look turned slightly pitying... probably thinking that since I was a servant I must have died at 14 or 15. At least that's how I presume it works, that would make sense, since the 'heroes' of this type are generally warriors who died in battle.

"Wait all the clocks in the house were an hour early when I got up so it's one am right now not two! Ugh, I did it again!" she says grabbing her head and squatting down, whining a bit.

"Well, what's done is done," she says and gets up.

"What are you?" she asks.

"You probably know better than I do, but I guess Archer, however little sense that makes," I answer.

"And you are my Servant and mine alone?" she asks.

"Yes," I say with a sigh.

"Why are you sighing?" she asks with a slightly irritated tone.

"Who else's servant could I be? You know which Servant classes are summoned at any time up to the start of the war, so if I'm Archer I must have just been summoned," I say.

"I suppose you're right..." she says, "Well, let's take this somewhere else, it's getting cold with a hole in the roof."

"Fine by me," I say, though not really affected by the cold, I suppose my coat still had the same effect of making it always a comfortable temperature.

I follow the girl through the door she came in through and down some stairs and then through a corridor and then turned left into one of the many rooms... basically, what I'm trying to say is that it's a big house. The room had a glass table in the middle with two couches on opposite sides of it as well as some gadgets on the shelves built into the walls of the room. It was too dark to see what color the couches were.

She sits down on one of the couches and says, "Go ahead, sit." I do as she says and sit down on the couch opposite her.

"I am Rin Tohsaka, what's your name?" she asks.

"I'm... uh..." Yuki or Jun? Which would be more appropriate? Ah, whatever, "Yuki."

"I see. So how did you become a heroic spirit so young?" she asks.

"If you're wondering how I died, I didn't. And I'm not much of a hero either," I say.

"Then how are you here?" she asks.

"Your guess is probably better than mine, I was just trying to sleep and then I wake up having fallen through your roof," I say, omitting the part where I come from a game.

"And you're sure you weren't killed in your sleep or something?" she asks.

"100%," I say.

"There's exceptions to everything, I guess," she says.

"I'm just curious about how to get back, what happens if I die, etc. All those things that would normally be of none-issue for someone already dead," I say.

"I see... well, I should probably get to bed because I have school tomorrow," she says with a yawn.

"I don't feel sleepy so I guess as a servant I don't need to sleep, or perhaps it is that I was already sleeping when summoned, so good night, I'll go explore the city if you don't mind," I say.

Then I realize I don't even know what the city is called, "What's this city called?"

"Fuyuki city," she says.

That city doesn't exist where I come from. I guess that's a good thing...

"So this isn't my world," I say.

"Huh? What do you mean?" she asks.

"Well, judging by the stuff around, this is around my time and there's no city in Japan called Fuyuki, at least not one this big, where I come from... there's no magic or inexplicable phenomena that could be explained by magic where I come from either," I say.

"Wait, around your time? What year do you come from?" she asks.

"2023... I think," I say.

"Wait, so you're from the future?" she asks.

"Well now I'm definitely relieved that this isn't my world, 'cause otherwise I could very well erase myself from existence or something. Well maybe not erase myself since I should have been born by now, but you get what I mean," I say.

"When were you born?"

"2008," I say.

"Then you wouldn't have been born yet, even if it was the same world, seeing as it's 2006," she says.

"Oh... well, it doesn't matter since it isn't the same world," I say.

"Anyway, you didn't really answer my question, you still need to be able to fight very well and that sort of thing to be a Servant, so how are you a Servant despite being what, 15? Besides, your clothes definitely aren't something from 20 years in the future," she asks.

"Video games, or really a specific video game, a quite special one too," I say.

"Right, I believe you," she says sarcastically.

"It's a virtual reality game, but not like those video headset ones, but one that completely separates you from world, cutting off the connection of your brain from the rest of your body and feeding video, audio, touch, taste, and smell directly into your brain and making your character move when you tried to move your body, effectively creating a whole new world."

"But, the genius who made it decided that he should trap all 10000 people who first played the official release of his game in a death trap, where if someone tried to remove the device or if you died in game, your real body would be kd. The only way to get out was to reach the 100th floor of the giant floating castle which was the game world. I am arguably the strongest player there. It's been a little over a year since we were trapped there and are a little over a third of the way out, this body is my body from that game, which is looks like a 15 year old because that's how old I was when trapped. Oh and he made everyone look like their real selves at the start," I say.

After a bit she asks jokingly, "What video headsets?"

"2006... those weren't around then, were they..." I mutter.

"Basically like a computer that goes onto your head and used for games, generally your character turns their head when you do when using one," I explain.

"Oh," she says.

"Well anyway, you should go sleep if you have school tomorrow, staying up till nearly 2 and then waking up at 7 won't be good for you," I say.

She nods and heads off, presumably to bed.

I myself feel the need to exit by opening the window and jumping out.

* * *

I return to the mansion by the time people normally leave for school and wait outside for her to come out.

A few minutes later she comes out of the building, looking not particularly awake.

"Good morning, sleepy," I say.

"Good morning," she says, slightly sleepily.

"Well, you should probably get going, you wouldn't want to be late," I say teasingly.

"Heroic Spirit or not, I'm still your senior!" she says, her voice full of annoyance.

"Worse than Asuna..." I mutter.

"What was that?" she asks.

"Nothing, nothing at all," I say.

"Good." Definitely worse than Asuna. Then again, maybe Asuna is like this in real life.

"Well, I'll just be watching out for any other Servants or whatever," I say and dematerialize, something as natural as breathing despite this being my first doing it.

We walked—or really, she walked and I kinda floated incorporeally—to her school.

* * *

As we walk through the school gates there seems to be some sort of 'field.' Rin reacts to it but all the other students walk through it with no problems.

"Follow me," she says quietly.

"Alright," I answer.

We walk into the building and stop right before the stairs up the second floor.

"Someone set up a bounded field here," she says.

"I'm not even going to bother asking, because I doubt you could explain magic to me in the limited time we have at the moment," I answer.

"Let's just hope your combat skills make up for your complete lack of knowledge of anything but the bare basics," she says.

"So what do you plan to do?" I ask.

"A good mage's bounded field shouldn't be detectable by others, so this person is likely a complete novice or a heavy hitter who doesn't care about being caught, but regardless of that, anyone who sets up such crude junk on my territory gets taken down. Period," she says.

"So what's the plan?" I ask once more.

"After school we'll find the runes a erase them," she says.

"Hey, is magic like it is in fantasy books or whatever, I mean the chanting, mana, drops of blood, runes, glyphs, carvings, etc.?" I ask.

"Well yeah, I guess," she says.

"Okay and this field will go down if we either get rid of its mana supply or erase the runes?" I ask.

"Yes, but the mana supply is generally the caster, and locating them will be more difficult than erasing the runes, so we should start with that and maybe they'll show up and try to stop-" at this point we are cut off by a girl stumbling as she comes down the stairs and dropping a bunch of papers on the floor. "We'll finish talking later," she says quietly before walking over to the girl. The girl was dressed in the same uniform as all the other girls and had nearly waist length light-blueish purplish hair.

"Let me help you out Sakura," Rin says and squats down, picking up some of the papers.

"Oh, Rin," Sakura answers.

"Thank you so much for your help, really," she says after a moment and goes back to picking up papers.

"It's no problem," Rin answers. "So are you bringing these to your class?"

"No, to Mr. Kuzuki, he told me to bring them back because there was a typo," she answers.

"He's a perfectionist all right," Rin says and help pick up the rest of the pages.

* * *

Durning lunch break I ask to her quietly, "Is it okay if I showed up as your relative or something, I looked at the stuff you're covering, it shouldn't be too difficult?"

"You're saying that this material wouldn't be difficult for you despite being two years too young and behind a year?" she asks.

"Schools are generally pretty slow," I answer.

"I get a Servant who's better at schoolwork than me," she says quietly and sighs.

"Anyway, we look nothing alike," she points out.

"I'm albino,—which makes it strange that I can walk around like this, but I'm guessing that's 'cause this is my game body—even if I was your relative, I wouldn't look anything like you. And even though being albino is genetic, it can occur without either parent being albino. They'll be too busy noticing that I don't look anything like you in that sense to notice I don't look anything like you in any other sense either," I say.

"Fine, but tomorrow, today just look over my shoulder or something, okay? Besides, we'd need to do something about your outfit for that," she asks.

"Fine," I say with a sigh and lean against the wall in an invisible but tangible form.

* * *

"Yuki, would your kind do such a thing?" she asks as we stand on the roof.

"From what I know, as a Servant I depend on mana and this field turns people into mana, so from purely a perspective of winning this war, it does seem like a fairly sound idea," I say. Then hurriedly add, "It probably disgusts me more than you, seeing as you were prepared for this war since you were young and are already used to the idea of killing."

"Yuki, have you ever killed anyone?" she asks.

"Yes. Once, though it was a group of 7 people. I did it in a rage and regret it, but in my defense, they were part of a group called Laughing Coffin, which should give you more than enough information as to why I killed them," I say.

"This happened in the 'game' you mentioned?" she asks.

"Yes, but we were talking about something else entirely, but before we leave this topic completely, I would like to say this, I'm willing to kill Servants, and if the situation absolutely requires it, Masters, but I won't attack bystanders, that's it," I say.

"I can agree with that, back to what we were doing," she says and squats down next the rune, putting her hand on it and closing her eyes.

The rune was originally a dull red, then when she put her hand on it, it started to glow, and then after a moment it turned very start red, almost black.

"You're just going to erase it now? What a waste," asks someone, perched above us. He was dressed in blue and had some metal armor on his shoulders and body. It didn't take a Servant to see that he was most certainly a Servant himself.

"Are you behind this?" she asks.

"It's a Master's duty to the dirty tricks, Servants just fight where and when they are told. Isn't that right, my invisible friend?" he asks, turning directly to me as he said the last part.

Blah blah blah, enemy Servant jumps down.

He dashes at Rin, who dodges and finishes her chant, bolting towards one of the fences on the edges before muttering something else and leaping over it.

"Yuki, cover the landing!" she yells.

Well, here's my part.

I run and jump over the fence with ease and land slightly before Rin, catching her with the superhuman strength of my current body and jumping off the ground once more, avoiding the Lancer's strike and landing, slowing down significantly before setting Rin down on the ground and having her run to a stop.

Lancer catches up and strikes at Rin, but a simple, slim black longsword appears in my right hand a I parry the blow, appearing momentarily before disappearing once more.

I stand between the Lancer and Rin, appearing.

"Oh? My opponent is a little girl?" the Lancer asks.

"I'm offended by that, I'm not particularly little, besides, this is a fight between Servants, what does age matter?" I ask.

"What are you? Saber?" he asks.

"A jerk who's really good at pissing people off," I say with a lopsided grin.

"And you're obviously Lancer," I add.

"Perhaps you're somehow an Archer? Since you're obviously no Sorcerer or Rider, you talk too coherently to be a Berserker and no Saber is so dishonorable they wouldn't even say that they are a Saber, and honestly, you would have attack already if you were Assassin. So are you an Archer?" he asks.

"Guilty as charged, process of elimination works nice sometimes," I say jokingly.

"Yuki, try to take this more seriously, please?" Rin asks.

"You should really listen to what your master says," Lancer says.

"Is it really wise to say your Servants name?" Lancer then asks Rin.

"My name won't do you any good," I say.

"Well, go ahead, Archer, draw your bow, I'll wait," he says.

I wait for Rin to give me some sort of orders, when she doesn't I glance at her.

She seems to realize and says, "You will receive no assistance from me, show me what you're good for here and now."

"With pleasure," I say, smiling psychotically.

I squat down slightly and dash slightly to the side of him, though to spectators I would pretty much have vanished there.

A look of surprise appears on his face and he turns just in time to block my blow from behind him.

I strike at him repeatedly, using my light sword to make him have to defend. I doubt I could beat him in a contest of strength, however, with my speed I can strike in so many places that he's forced to be constantly blocking, because my blows to pack enough punch to injure him fairly seriously if he lets even one through.

Suddenly, he pushes forward with the handle of his spear—made of the same material as the head and what he had been using for blocking—in perfect timing with one of my blows and forces me slightly off balance.

"Gotcha!" he says and jabs forward. Unfortunately for him, he still doesn't seem to realize how fast I can move. I move my sword between myself and the spear and get flung back by the force.

"I must admit, you're better than I expected," he says.

"Looks can be deceiving," I say.

"What is it with your sword? It looks like a completely normal sword some random smith forged for mass-production, and yet it survived a head-on blow from my spear," he says.

"Decoration of swords is stupid, it serves only to weaken the blade and increase its weight, this is the ideal of a sword, perfect with nothing extra. Swords are weapons, not jewelry. Well at least in this case, I'm sure for some king or something the sword is purely ceremonial and closer to jewelry rather then a weapon," I say.

"I must admit, you've got a point there," says the Lancer.

I dash forward, attempting to impale him with my hybrid between a longsword and a rapier.

The sword skims his right side as he redirects it with his spear, not quite in time.

"Damn you're fast," he says as he swings the sharp edge of his spear down on me, I attempt to dodge to the right, only to realize my sword was on the opposite side of his body and hesitate just a moment before letting go of my sword to dodge. That moment was enough for me to fail to completely dodge the spear and it skims my arms and hits the ground. Rather surprisingly, the wound is as wounds in SAO are and simply a red wire-frame.

I roll behind him and snatch my still falling sword while he recovered from his blow hitting mostly ground and then disengage.

"Now you're starting to creep me out, what the hell is with you? You don't even bleed," he says.

"I'm the demon from your worst nightmares... or something like that," I say jokingly.

So who is he? Damn, why'd I have to hate history so much.

I jump back to Rin and quietly ask, "Have you figured out who he is? I never really studied any history."

Rin just puts her hand to her forehead and sighs.

"From his very high speed, he would have have to be 'Irelands Child of Light,'" she says.

Have I heard of him? I think I have, let's see, the lore of a weapon, what was the weapon's name? Ah yes, Gae Bulg. It was a spear, so that matches, of course it looked nothing like it, but that isn't surprising seeing as there are different interpretations of legends. It was a spear which came with the special skill of being thrown much better than if you tried to throw a normal spear using throwing skills. I believe it was basically guaranteed by the system to hit when thrown.

It's quite likely that his Noble Phantasm is Gae Bulg.

"Gae Bulg," I say simply.

He makes an annoyed sound, looks like we got it right.

"I thought you said you didn't study history?" Rin asks.

"Video games have references to legends all the time," I answer.

"Well then, since you've figured me out, I guess you have to die here!" he says and readies his spear.

Red wisps surround it and it starts to glow brightly, as a Servant I can detect mana to a certain extent, and there was a lot of it there. Like a lot. Given that it was all being pumped into his Noble Phantasm, he was likely about to use its full powers. Crap. I doubt I could block it, which means I need to dodge, but if it is like in SAO, I doubt I could do that. In SAO I would have blocked it, but there's no telling how much force there'll be.

Then, there's the sound of footsteps.

"Who's there?" Lancer asks, spinning around, the mana around his spear dissipating. He immediately runs after the person.

"A student? Someone was still in the school?!" Rin says panicked.

"Lancer chased after him, we should probably catch up before he kills the person," I say and grab Rin, taking off as fast as I could after the person.

I saw Lancer enter a building and followed.

As I ran in there was a set of stairs.

I ran to the top and look into the corridor.

Lancer was nowhere to be seen and there was a person who had been stabbed.

* * *

After Rin worked some magic and healed the person using some gems or whatever—I don't get any of it, it's f**king magic—we left and head back to her house.

"Hey Yuki?" she asks.

"Yeah, what?" I reply.

"What do you think will happen if Lancer realizes his witness isn't dead?" she asks, dread appearing on her face.

"He'll go finish the job..." I say slowly.

"Fuhhh-" I start to say and then ask, "You seemed to recognize the person, do you know where he lives?"

"Yeah, just head-" I cut her off saying, "Just show me on a map."

"Uh, okay," she says, fumbling with her phone, obviously nervous.

She points to it on the map and I say, "Okay, got it."

I squat down and say, "Get on."

"Huh!?" she asks.

"It's a lot easier to carry you that way, and we'll never get there in time if we go at your pace," I say.

She nods and gets on my back. I stand up and start running in the direction of the desired location, mostly along roads but landing on roofs too.

As we're about to reach the destination I sense two Servants.

"There are two Servants here," I say.

"Two?" she asks.

"Two other than myself, one is likely Lancer," I say.

"Approach slowly and with caution, I'll stay a little ways behind you," she orders.

I nod and jump onto the roof before letting setting her down.

A slowly approach the edge of the roof and look down, two Servants are in combat and the boy who Rin had saved earlier was watching in awe.

One is—as expected—Lancer, and the other is a 'knight in shining armor,' so Saber.

The Saber's sword was shrouded in mist, and the length wasn't very clear. So this was either just to give her an advantage in a fight by not letting her opponent know its length, or her sword was so well known that simply letting it be seen would reveal who she is. What very well known swords are there? Well the first ones that come to mind are Excalibur and Caliburn, but that would make her King Arthur, which doesn't make much sense since she is obviously a woman. Then again, her attire is fairly royal. I can't really think of anything else that would completely give away the wielder just by having it be seen off the top of my head.

Lancer once again prepped his Noble Phantasm.

Well, I wasn't planning on stopping him from killing one of our enemies. What I am curious about is the force with which it moves, and if blocking it would be practical.

I use my tiara—which is likely what made me Archer in the first place—to levitate some dust, when the blow goes through I should be able to approximately know the strength of the blow.

"Gae Bulg!" Lancer calls and before he even moves, Saber dodges, and then the path is traced _backwards_ through the dust and only then the spear appears to be thrown. The spear went in reverse, starting at its destination and figuring out a way to get there from the beginning. That would probably have hit me exactly where it meant to hit me if had used it on me.

Saber however managed to dodge a blow which hits before it happens, which makes no sense. That blow should be impossible to dodge, or block really.

Lancer makes an annoyed 'tsk' and jumps up onto one of the roofs.

"You're running away?" Saber asks, left hand on her wound, which missed the heart ever so slightly.

"You see, my Master is a bit of a coward and wants me to retreat since I used my Noble Phantasm and you didn't die," Lancer answers and runs off.

"You! What do you want?" she asks, facing me.

Of course she noticed, I'm a Servant, of well.

"Do I come out?" I whisper to Rin, who was next to me by now.

"She's to noble to attack by surprise, but be careful anyway," she whispers back.

I nod slightly and jump off the roof.

"Hello, I'm Yuki, nice to meet you," I say.

The Saber seems surprised by me introducing myself by name, but in my case, it's less useful than my class for her since she gets nothing from my name. Well, Archer would be misleading, but still.

"By the way, I don't particularly want to fight, I came here chasing after Lancer, who ran off chasing after him," I say, gesturing to the spectator.

"Then leave," she says, readying her sword.

I wait for Rin to tell me something. _"Right now would be a better time than most to fight her, seeing as she is somewhat injured, but it's up to you if you want to fight someone injured,"_ she says telepathically, something that Servant-Master pairs can do.

"You can attack me if you want, I don't really care either way," I say.

"Then so be it," she says and charges forward.

I materialize my sword and parry- or try to, more like get knocked flat to the ground by the force of the overhead blow. I roll to the side, avoiding her follow up blow and jump back up to my feet. Okay, no parrying her blows if possible, way too strong. Then I strike with an overhead blow and while she parries it, materialize my second sword—a simple sword which was a white copy of my right sword—and strike at her legs.

Unfortunately she reacts in time—which I guess isn't all that surprising given that my opponent was able to dodge a spear that hit before moving—and I barely graze her leg, so my sword just glances off the armor.

"If I weren't Saber myself, I would assume you were a Saber, who are you?" she asks.

"Just some girl who spends too much time playing video games," I say. Technically the truth.

"Playing what?" she asks.

Right, how would someone from somewhere between a few hundred and few thousand years ago know about video games.

"It's a type of game, okay?" I ask as I dodge one of her blows.

"One does not get so good at swordsmanship through games," she answers.

"I have no obligation to tell you anything more," I say.

I get ready to strike and she blocks before I even act on it. Can she see the future or something? There's no way she could have guessed that I would strike there, I didn't even change where I was looking yet. I guess to beat her I need to make her unable to block, for example by trapping her between two blows, or striking too fast for even her to react. Maybe she can only see premonitions of lethal/near lethal strikes? Because she doesn't block all my blows before they happen.

"What is it with you? You block my attacks before I even change where I'm looking and you are able to dodge a blow from a spear that happened before the spear moved," I ask, not really expecting an answer.

Oh crap.

I won't be able to dodge that without at least losing an arm, maybe a head.

"Stop!" cried out the boy and activated one of his command seals, so he's her Master.

Of course, the Saber stops.

I could easily chop her down while she's bound by command seal, but even I wouldn't do that.

I dematerialize my swords and take a few steps back.

Saber reluctantly sheathes her sword.

"So we're not going to fight right now?" I ask.

"I suppose not. I must say, your swordsmanship is impressive, especially for someone so young," she answers.

At this point Rin drops down from the roof, though instead of jumping down, she hangs down from the edge and drops, probably not wanting to waste mana on using any spells.

"Rin?" asks Saber's master.

* * *

After a bit, Rin somehow ends up explaining to this boy—Shiro Emiya—the Holy Grail War while Saber and I just sit and drink tea.

Saber is a women in her late 20s/early 30s with her blond hair in a bun with two locks—one on each side of her head—of shoulder length hair. Her clothes consist of a blue dress with armor on the forearms, chest, and the sides of the skirt and under the skirt she wears plata armor leggings. She looked very much western and was definitely not Asian.

"Can you come with me, there is something I would like to ask you," Saber says. She's unlikely to disobey her Master and attack me, especially as Rin could easily kill her Master and she knows it, so I guess no reason not to.

"Alright," I say and get up, she also gets up and walks outside the way we came.

We sit down on the porch and she says sadly, "To become a Heroic Spirit at such a young age..." Oh come on, now a person who was literally trying to kill me less than half an hour ago is pitying me.

"I'm not a Heroic Spirit, in fact I'm not a spirit at all," I say.

"You're a Servant though," she says.

"But I haven't died. Ever heard the phrase 'there's an exception to every rule?' Probably not actually, but whatever," I say.

The chances of her being King Arthur are low, but might as well check.

"So King Arthur, what did you call me out here for?" I ask.

She nearly jumps back, shock on her face, "How the hell do you even know that?"

"You just told me," I say.

"I guessed. You hid your sword, so I assumed that it was either because the sword would completely give away who you are or for an advantage from your opponent not really being able to see your swords exact length. The first swords that came to mind that were that unique and recognizable were Caliburn and Excalibur, in the legends King Arthur dies with Excalibur so it is more likely Excalibur than Caliburn."

"I've known you for less than half an hour and you've already managed to impress me in more ways than one," Saber says.

"Well your real name obviously isn't Arthur since you are obviously a woman, so what is it?" I ask.

"Artoria," she answers.

"Well, if that's all, I'm going to go drink some more tea or something," I say and get up.

* * *

Now we're at the church and Saber and I have to wait outside because it is forbidden territory for Servants as the neutral ground in the war. I was in invisible form but Saber—thanks to her improper summoning by someone who isn't really a mage—was unable to do so and thus was wearing a raincoat instead.

A litte—okay pretty long and boring—wait later, the two of them exit and Rin says, "No offense, but you should head home by yourself. I took you to see the priest because we weren't enemies in this war yet, but now you're a fellow Master."

Blah blah blah, the boy, Shiro I think, stupidly naive, like more naive than I am, by a lot, says some naive stuff and we all start to walk back to our respective homes when I—and presumably Saber, since she does the same—sense a Servant behind us and spin round.

"So, are you all done chatting?" asks a little girl like 11-13 years old... okay not that little, but still, way to young for this.

Next to her, in the mist, stands a giant, about twice taller than Saber with a large sword in his hand. One of the Servant's eyes glowed red and he was extremely muscular and very threatening, even to someone who fought bosses easily 5 times larger than him in SAO.

"That's Berserker," Rin says. No it's obviously Assassin. Who else could it be?

"Good evening big brother, this makes it two times that we've met," says the girl. Is she Shiro's sister? But then they would have met more than once before. Well, maybe I'll ask once her Servant is dead, no matter how threatening he looks, he can't be THAT much stronger than a boss from SAO... right? The primal dread I felt from him said otherwise. Hopefully it's just because normally you're prepared for boss fights and there's, you know, a raid party of 20-50 people to back you up.

The girl steps forward and curtseys, saying, "Good evening, Rin, my name is Illya, short for Illyasviel von Einzbern. Von Einzbern, I assume you've heard the name before?"

Surprisingly, Saber reacts to the name every so slightly as well.

"The Einzberns-" Rin starts to explain.

"Is it relevant to winning this fight? If not, I think we should save this for later, because that thing will probably kill us," I say.

She nods and says, "In terms of raw ability, this Servant outclasses even Saber by a lot."

"Yuki, if you actually have any long range abilities, stick to support for now," she instructs.

"I doubt it will have much effect, but alright," I say and jump back a little ways.

I take out 8 knives from my jacket and stand ready for the fight to start, I get the feeling it will do little more than distract the thing, despite the quality of the knives.

"Berserker. Kill," the little girl orders and Berserker charges forward at Shiro.

Just before it can hit him however, Saber manages to get between them and block the blow of the giant, creating enough of a shockwave to knock Shiro to the floor.

Now wait for a moment where even a distracting will help and attack then. I float my knives in the air and wait.

It was obvious that at this point Berserker had an advantage, as Saber was mostly on the defensive, and well, losing ground, fast.

Berserker swung down and Saber attempted to block the blow. Stupid move, since now she was pinned down.

Well, now would probably be a good time for me to attack.

I control one of the floating daggers to fly forward, well, as fast as I could make it go and attempted to stick it into the Berserkers neck.

The dagger hit Berserker and barely went through his skin. A better result than I had hoped for, actually.

This made him release some of the pressure on Saber as he roared and she was able to escape, causing the sword to slam into the ground. Saber then jumped onto the blade and slashed at Berserker, who couldn't pull it up in time and almost got hit, but—unlike me—let go of his sword without hesitation and leaned back, dodging under the strike and then using a series of punches and kicks with ridiculous agility to throw Saber back and recover his sword.

I used the ability of my tiara—which happened to be one of my Noble Phantasms and was empowered by the Archer class—to retrieve the dagger.

Damn it this guy was going to be hard to kill.

What weaknesses could it have? Think, think.

With raid bosses the weakness is generally something simple, like they're stunned after some big attack or something, but this guy is crazy fast and relentless.

Oh, his sword. I find it hard to believe that his stone, crude sword will be able to take all that much of a beating, especially if I attack the right places, for example not attacking the blade but the side. It could be possible to destroy his sword. Not that that would guarantee a victory, even if I managed, but it would certainly make things easier. My swords are boss drops of an extremely powerful floor boss, which has got to count for something, so I find it hard to believe that a crude sword made of some brittle rock would outlast it.

But I really not to stop thinking in game terms, in games bosses with no weakness would make the game no fun, but in the real world there is no game balancing making sure the game is fun and possible.

It could work, and it's worth a shot, after all, if I die I'll probably just go back to my world. Speaking of my world, I wonder how the passage of time there works, is my body mysteriously missing? Or my SAO body? Or is this just happening in an instant, or maybe this is all just a dream, that's always an option. I'm going to hope one of the latter two... if it was the first one then that just wouldn't make any sense, but I guess the doctors in whatever hospital I'm at would be extremely confused, tell my parents I'm dead and take the NerveGear somewhere, then when I reappear I wouldn't be in SAO any more, which would be arguably a good thing.

Then again, the amount of unwanted attention that would bring... and nobody would believe my answer either, "Oh yeah, I was summoned to another world to fight in some war and when I came back I was out." I would totally believe myself if I said that. Not.

If someone said that I'd call them crazy and think of a better explanation of how they got out of SAO, disappeared, and reappeared, because that just isn't something that you can believe. I'd be more likely to believe them if they said they were teleported to an anime or something... Oh. Right. Fate/Stay Night. Now I'm more confused. Actually confused is the wrong word, freaked the fuck out is more appropriate.


	2. Chapter 2

**So yeah, this is basically a continuation of the last chapter, I just cut it 'cause for some reason at 7k words it starts getting kinda slow at saving (yes I write directly in fan fiction) (and at a little over 9k it just fails to save at all)**

 **It totally isn't delayed at all.**

* * *

 **(Yuki)**

Well, I can deal with figuring out how close this is to the anime I watched later, but if it is at all close, killing this guy once won't be enough. What was it? 12 I think, or is it 12 extra lives and he needs to be killed 13 times? Either way, if I can kill him once, then it's just a matter of repeating the process... kinda.

I slowly approach during Saber and Berserker's fight, hoping that Berserker will be too busy fighting Saber to notice my presence.

 _"Yuki, what are you doing?"_ asks Rin.

 _"I have an idea,"_ I respond.

My first attack should be directly on him, because if I do it right, I might be able to knock off one of his lives and hitting his sword will be pretty easy at any time.

I get about 5 meters away and then decide to check whether I can use sword skills, because if I can, that would make things a **lot** easier. In SAO I could activate one-handed sword skills with both hands at once, so if I can use sword skills, I'm guessing the same rules apply. I raise both swords in the position for [Sonic Leap] and lo and behold, my left and right sword were each shrouded in black and white auras respectively and a moment later I was propelled forward at the Berserker, both swords coming down.

Surprisingly, the Berserker reacts just barely in time to avoid the blow hitting him. Of course that would have been too easy. Perhaps Berserker actually knew I was there all along.

Comfortingly, I did see a small chip fly off of his blade, while mine remained intact. It was a very small chip and actually destroying his sword at that rate would take forever, but it meant it could be destroyed. If it was, for example, an A-rank Noble Phantasm, that would make things a bit more difficult, for example my swords, they were a permanently active anti-person Noble Phantasm, much like Saber's near-invisible sword.

 _"Yuki, are you insane? It doesn't matter how good with your swords you are, you realize you are an Archer by class and that thing outclasses you in strength, endurance, and even luck, you won't be able to kill it,"_ Rin says.

 _"Yes, I am insane, actually. As far as insane things I've done go, this doesn't come close to the top, I even have a plan,"_ I answer.

The moment my feet touch the ground I jump back, putting distance between myself and Berserker. In a 1v1 fight he could pursue and while if I turned and ran I would outrun the thing, while I was turning I would probably be killed, but since this isn't a 1v1 fight, and attempt to pursue would lead to serious damage from Saber and me getting away anyway.

I really wish I had the [Parry] skill right now, but I had only started the quest for it the evening before I went to bed in SAO and hadn't finished it.

Berserker, instead of pursuing, also jumped back to avoid a hit from Saber, who had barely missed the opening created by my attack.

While Berserker was in midair I launched all 8 knives at him, 7 of which he blocked and the last one I made go separate from the other 7 and hit him from the other side. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, it was almost completely harmless, but it distracted him for a moment and Saber retreated to where I was. "Let me lure him away from the city and into some park, that way we can avoid any collateral damage," she said.

"Alright," I say. She was right, that's what I get for being used to fighting bosses in indestructible boss rooms, which even if they were destructible, I wouldn't care about them being destroyed outside of problems with the fight.

She once again charges at the bo- Berserker and immediately after hitting him jumps in the direction of the park. "Berserker! Pursue her!" Illyasviel yells.

This would be the perfect opportunity to attack—and if this were any other Servant, I probably would—but in this case, he wouldn't die even if I could get a perfect hit so it would be stupid and make it harder for Saber to lead him away.

 _"I'm following them,"_ I say.

I bolt after them. Hm, I wonder if [Hiding] would still work, I forgot about it entirely because of a Servant's natural ability to dematerialize, but I find it likely that I wouldn't be so easily detectable if I used [Hiding]. I try to activate it and—rather unsurprisingly at this point, given that sword skills work—it works.

Following doesn't seem like it will be difficult, quite a few trees are missing in the right direction. If I hadn't known what I know, I'd feel sorry for the priest who'll have to clean this up and explain this somehow. Oh I know, an invisible tornado came through here... totally.

I ran along, dodging between the tree stumps and reached a grave yard where they were fighting... well destroying graves is better than killing people.

As I walk around Berserker, I search for any weaknesses, finding none. Well, now that I'm behind him, now would be a good time to try again.

I position one rapier-longsword hybrid in position for [Linear], a basic rapier skill and the other in position for [Sonic Leap], one of two longsword dash attacks. At some point, I had gotten my swords from a boss, and found that it qualified as both rapier and longsword, kinda like a bastard sword was a two-handed sword and one-handed one. I then immediately picked up the rapier skill. Though the sword was too heavy to make ideal use of it, the lung skills can come in extremely handy.

I lept forward, propelled by both the skills, unlike with two [Sonic Leaps], which being the same skill, didn't double the effect.

The [Sonic Leap] was poorly angled and glanced off his extremely tough skin, but the [Linear] went almost all the way through him. Unfortunately, [Linear] was a poke and much more effective for hitting weak spots, something I had entirely failed to do, thus despite going almost straight through him, I didn't manage to knock off even one of his lives.

Fortunately this allowed Saber to also stab him, causing him a more severe injury—though less severe than I would like—which while still not killing him, would make this fight much easier and he wouldn't really be able to heal it mid-fight without using up one of his lives, which would be pointless.

I yank out my left sword in the most injuring way I can—causing Berserker to roar, likely in pain and/or rage—and activate [Inverted Vertical] with my right sword to parry the blow almost certainly coming down on me from Berserker.

As predicted Berserker brings his stone sword down on me and it clashes with mine, getting knocked back up by the force of the sword skill.

I jump back and retreat, allowing Saber to continue fighting him.

Illyasviel was nowhere in sight, so it is quite likely she was fighting Shiro and/or Rin.

Well, no time worrying about that now.

We needed to get rid of this thing, either by killing it, or just making it and its master retreat.

It would be nice if I could support Saber better, because the way I'm fighting now, I need to strike with individual strikes and I can't just fight at the same time because Saber and I will get in each other's way.

Face palm.

I feel like an idiot. I forgot about the special ability of my swords... because I never use it because using them as swords is generally faster and I play solo so I don't need to provide support, but still, actually forgetting about it, I feel dumb.

I put the handles of my swords together—each sword facing in opposite directions—and the two merge together, the blades becoming round rods and then bending, finally a strand of darkness connects the two tips.

I pull back the bow with fingers in position to hold an arrow and an arrow of light appears. Hopefully I somehow manage to shoot it without basically any practice, but given that in SAO you can throw throwing weapons without practice thanks to the swords skills, I should manage.

When I draw the bow back completely it is surrounded by a very slight light. I aim at the back of Berserker's neck and release the arrow. As it flies a streak of white light follows it, not extremely practical for sniping, not sure whether it was made that way for game balance or just for it to look cooler. Then again, the streak only lasts a fraction of a second, going back no more than a meter behind the arrow, so while if they're looking my they'll see where I am, but if they aren't and just turn around, it won't give them much.

The arrow flies towards Berserker, who moves a little late, but it stabs into his shoulder instead of his neck, then it promptly dissipates into white particles which themselves fade into nothing. I draw the bow back again and fire, this time Berserker dodges the arrow entirely. Well, it distracted him from Saber's sword, which was hurtling towards his neck.

He still somehow managed to partially deflect the blow and it landed on his chest instead, drawing a long gash along his chest which I was able to see as Saber jumped around him and he turned to follow.

There wasn't much blood, which was a good thing, because I'm not exactly used to blood, as in I've never seen more than a few drops of real blood before. Oh sure, anime have blood showers and whatever and action moves often have blood, though not all that much actually. But in real life—and this counts—I've never seen a significant amount of blood before.

I wonder if I can shoot multiple arrows at once. I put my hand in a position where I could hold 3 arrows at once when I draw the bow and this time 3 arrows appear. I draw the bow all the way back and rotate the bow 90° so that one of the arrows heads for his throat and the other two head for each of his shoulders.

Unfortunately he succeeds in blocking all three arrows with an extremely well timed horizontal swipe of his sword. I guess it's back to plan A, destroying his sword. I twist the handles in opposite directions and the string vanishes, the limbs straighten, once again become blades, and then they spilt apart. I flip them around so I'm holding them in the correct direction and then dash forward, activating [Linear] with my right sword, aiming for a dent in the side of his sword.

With my left sword I activate the sword skill [Snake Bite] which is basically two simultaneous attacks from left to right and 'then' right to left, though since I activated it left handed, it is right to left and 'then' left to right. I say 'then' instead of then because they happen at basically the same time, but it does change the angle and stuff. The combo of [Linear] and [Snake Bite] create a sound other than the collision of blades and tiny cracks appear in a few places on the giants sword.

This might work.

Or not...

The giant swings his large sword down on top of me and I raise my swords in a most certainly futile effort to block, since I had neither the time to use sword skills or dodge.

However, Saber gets between me and the giant and blocks the sword.

"Thank you," I say and jump back.

"I still owe you," she responds as she forces back the injured Berserker's blade. Wait what? How, I helped her a few times, but it's not like she would have died if I hadn't, but okay, whatever.

She jumps back and asks, "Why do you not aim for him, you seem to be aiming for his sword?"

"If I try to hit him, he blocks with the blade of his sword, while if I aim for his sword, I can hit the side and cause severe damage to it, as a result I can destroy his sword much easier than kill him. This is helped by the fact that while my swords are made of a adequate for swords material, his is made of rock," I explain.

"I see," she says. Then after a moment more she says, "It seems a reasonable approach, as we have failed to land any good blows on him, even working together. We shall aim to destroy his sword." The way she talks is a bit awkward... then again, given that she's the king of Britain from a millennia and a half ago, that isn't all that surprising.

 _"A little help please,"_ Rin said telepathically and I say out loud, "I'm sorry, my Master requires my assistance."

"Go then, I can hold this thing off," she says.

I nod and leap into the trees and onto the roof a conveniently placed tower. As I jump I fuse my swords into their bow form and look out.

I spot Rin in a bit of a problematic situation. As in there was a floating sword pointed at her. I drew back an arrow and aimed for a little bit in front of the sword. The sword glowed and streaked forward and I released the arrow. It soared and—thanks to either Archer class or the way it is made as part of SAO—hit its mark and knocked the flying sword into the ground and shattered it.

Rin used the opportunity created to run and Illyasviel looked annoyedly in my direction.

 _"Are you alright?"_ I ask her.

 _"Perfect timing, thank you,"_ she says.

I look to see where Illyasviel was and see that she had gone, dang.

 _"I'll head to your and Saber's location, you just support Saber however you were doing before,"_ she orders.

 _"Alright, don't forget to call for help if you need any,"_ I say.

I turn back to the fight and see that Saber had managed to land a few more blows on him, though he was still standing strong.

I saw Rin and Shiro arrive and take cover behind some dirt and rocks.

Saber raised her sword and wind surrounded it, then she charged forward.

Berserker swung his sword downward, creating a wave of rocks and stuff which Saber ran right through.

She stabbed forward and Berserker stopped the sword with his hand, it pierced through but stopped inches away from his body.

3\. 2. 1.

Saber drove her sword forward and it stuck into Berserker's side, then a moment later a beam of light erupted from the sword, tearing through Berserker.

For a moment her sword—Excalibur—was revealed before being turned into nothing but a column of thin mist once more.

Berserker wouldn't be dead yet, well he would be dead once, but he still needs to be kill 11 or 12 more times to really die. Oh right, I forgot, the lives restore themselves after a few days, though the anime didn't make it at all clear whether it took 3 days to restore one or 3 days to restore all that are lost.

I draw back my bow farther than before and the light arrow gets coated in darkness, dark and light wisps forming from the air around me and flowing into the arrow.

"I suggest you move away from Berserker!" I yell.

Saber doesn't hear me, but Shiro does and runs, grabbing Saber's hand and dragging them behind cover.

Good. I release the arrow and it flies at very high speed, almost instantly creating a beam of dark-light(?) between me and Berserker, the dark arrow sticking out of his just recovered body.

A second later, darkness erupts from the arrow, forming a black sphere that was pulling things into it, then the black sphere itself contracted and there was an explosion of light and I regretfully realized that I had probably been too close for using that as the searing heat poured over me, as I had no cover.

When the light cleared the ground was melting and on fire and Berserker stood in the middle and recovered once more. I have no doubt that that took a ridiculous amount of mana.

A bit later Saber says, "I appreciate you coming and saving me like you did, Master, but will you please unhand me."

Shiro blushes somewhat and lets go, jumping back and saying, "Oh right, sorry."

This causes me to laugh slightly, reminding me of how Kirito and I sometimes act around each other.

"I've changed my mind Rin, your Archer interests me, I will let you live for now. Berserker, let's go. Let's play again sometime, Big Brother," Illyasviel says and walks away.

Well, there go two of Berserker's lives... after two uses of A rank anti-fortress Noble Phantasms, but whatever. Actually, what Saber used might be anti-army, but what I used is definitely anti-fortress.

I could get used to this bow, maybe I should actually try it out once I get back to SAO, could make for a cool build.

Shiro coughs up some blood and collapses.

* * *

Next morning, after Rin and Saber take Shiro back to his house and after he wakes up, Rin and I are sitting on a bamboo step.

"How did you know to shoot it again? And how the hell it walk away from that?" she asks.

"Well, so you probably won't believe me and I'm currently operating on the theory that this is probably a dream, but the world I come from, this world is an anime, well approximately, things are already somewhat off thanks to my existence, but it doesn't change as much as you'd think, since the Archer that should have been summoned also was from the future."

She nods.

"Anyway, basically, Berserker's name is Hercules and his Noble Phantasm grants him the following 2 things I know of, firstly, it grants him 12 lives or maybe 12 extra lives, and these lives recover after some time, though I don't know exactly how—all I know is one life takes 3 days to recover, but I don't know if two is 6 days or still 3 days—and second, it grants him conceptual armor against any attack below rank A, it may have other abilities but I do not know of them,"

"And I would like to not really interfere too much so far for the sake of keeping it close to how I know until a catastrophe so that I can use my knowledge to prevent that instead of trying to prevent it now and just creating new ones, once this was is over I can summarize the whole thing to you if you want," I explain.

"And the reason I didn't tell you this right away is because I only remembered during the beginning of the fight with Berserker," I add.

"That's... unnerving," she says.

"Probably more so for you than for me, but it's pretty weird for me too," I say.


End file.
